I'll be posting The Tattered Trousers proper (aka the Worst Movies of 2010) further on in The Pantys, but this award right now is going out to something special - while it's by no means as bad as any of the movies you'll see listed in that future post it's still as far as I'm concerned a failure, and yet it's inexplicably been heaped with praise and embraced by nearly everyone. And it makes me crazy!In 2008 I gave this dubious prize to Slumdog Millionaire - excuse me Best Picture Winner Slumdog Millionaire! Dear lord! - and in 2007 the recognition went to crap-riddled Korean monster movie The Host. Apparently there wasn't a film in 2009 that made me feel this nuts and confused by its reception, but in 2010 was there ever. This year's award for Overcompensation in the Field of Unwarranted Critical Orgasms goes to:
Usually with a film that makes me this nuts I write up a review, but I guess at the time a momentary barrage of angry tweets was all I could muster for this one. So let me lay down my argument here: this film has nothing new or interesting to say about art, and I don't for a second buy Mr. Brainwash as anything more than a Banksy-constructed straw-man put up in order to knock down the bullshit Banksy's hocking about the industry that's made him a multi-millionaire. So what you're saying is the art world is filled with poseurs, Banksy? That's crazy!
As long as the film kept its eye on the making of street-art - the night-time shenanigans of these kooky punks - I found it all interesting enough. I think Banksy's art can be truly beautiful, and there is a fascinating method behind the madness of what these street artists are doing to art, by making it basically disposable, that truly undermines the corrupt corporatization of what the art world's become (not that it's any different from every aspect of our culture). But this movie takes the easy way out, setting up a shadow puppet just to make the dullest of points and laugh at the stupid hipsters enthusiastic about nonsense. Get back to me Banksy when you train your camera on the billionaires snatching up your paintings at Sothebys for obscene amounts of money and encasing them in their hidden tombs to be buried with. Then I might find something curious about what you're saying.
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4 comments:
I so agree with you. The exploration of the street artists I found fascinating but then it all became way too contrived. I still can't figure how they got video of Bansky painting a wall in Iraq (or somewhere) if he had never allowed himself to be filed before.
Yes! Agree completely. According to the movie, it's clever when Banksy does it, but if it's Mr Brainwash - pffft, he's just a pretender.
Yikes. We are in the 1% of areas in which we violently disagree. I loved this movie.
If you believe it's 100% legit, then it's fun to watch Mr. Brainwash completely flummox Banksy and Fairey. Essentially mocking their own self-importance by succeeding at their game with nothing but some kind of deluded sense of grandeur and a manic personality disorder.
Or it could be an elaborate con. Which essentially means Banksey et al are mocking their own self-importance as artists with this invented character.
Either way, I found it well done and 9000% times more interesting then them masturbating on camera about the importance of street art.
If there was a doc to HATE this year, it was "I'm Still Here." Unwatchable.
IMHO
Thanks for your article, quite useful piece of writing.
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